


années folles

by mightystranger (itiswhatitisbutterfly)



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Organized Crime, Speakeasies, dont worry about those dan and louis tags they are dumbass side characters, ode to the outfits from 3x07 and were not living in paris in the 1920s
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:55:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29416734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itiswhatitisbutterfly/pseuds/mightystranger
Summary: He looked at her in a way that no other man had ever dared. It was as if he knew deep down she was no lady and yet he admired her for it in a particular way. He looked at her like it really was 1925.Blair Waldorf returns to her New York in the height of the jazz age where she comes of age. Featuring flapper Serena and Blair, with bootlegger Chuck and Nate.
Relationships: Chuck Bass/Blair Waldorf, Nate Archibald/Serena van der Woodsen
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9





	années folles

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, so not sure how this has happened! my brain does what it wants apparently. while i did history at school and a little at university i am not from the us or france, so ignore all historical inaccuracies - i've tried my best.
> 
> années folles - the decade of the 1920s in france, it was coined to describe the rich social, artistic, and cultural collaborations of the period.

They said there was something in the New York air that made sleep useless. She earnt her nickname by being infamously lively. The ship docked and, for the first time in years, Blair Waldorf felt like she was truly home. There was a current in her that woke as she climbed down the stairs and toward her waiting motor vehicle.

This was her New York, but yet it was not the New York she had left behind for the confines for Europe. The skyline had expanded, it was filled with new sights that attempted to touch heaven. The hem lines had risen, up higher to test new waters. Her streets were lined and filled to the brim with a new kind of dream seekers. It burst at the seams. These were not foreign sights. The streets of London, Paris and Rome echoed their call to the new age, but this was different. The city she left three years ago barely resembled the one she welcomed now.

“Welcome home Miss Waldorf,” the driver greeted. They took her bags and opened the door with ease. She slipped inside and sat pressed against the leather seat with a warm sigh. Blair placed her day bag on the seat down against her side. She gently removed her gloves. The engine ignited and they were off into the traffic. 

New York has risen like a golden phoenix. She was roaring and alive.

-

The home at 1136 Fifth Avenue had not changed. Blair watched the staff place her bags one by one in the foyer like they had done her entire life. It was a deep comfort, after all of her travels and learning, that her childhood home awaited. Eleanor had updated the décor to incorporate the new look, but the bones remained strong in the timeless home that had belonged to her parents and their parents before them.

Blair admired the room as if it were the first time. Her reality was that despite her growth in stature, her now extensive knowledge of the French language, Blair really was still the Blair who left. She almost fit right back in with the furniture again and it startled her. As easily as the feeling same she shut the feeling down.

Eleanor appeared in a moment with wide arms from the grand staircase. If the home had warmed her, it was the sight and smell of her mother that set her alight. They exchanged heartfelt pleasantries before retiring quickly to the sitting room.

“I hope the passage was tolerable,” Eleanor commented as they sat. She ushered and tea with treats were presented with the flick of a hand. “Cyrus is at work.”

“I had Dorota to keep me company,” Blair replied. “The furnishings were superb and the weather bearable.”

They smiled. “I am just already missing Daddy,” Blair added. She did not know when she would next get to see him. Her reality was that her heart would always be split across the Atlantic. It would be a burden she would have to live with. The gift of the last years had been all she had wanted. It had been her heartfelt desire to live with him, and she had been granted her wish. However, life and the journey were always leading her back to New York while he vowed to never return. She allowed her sadness to mull.

“With the way the world keeps changing, I am sure it will be no time before there are aircraft halving the journey time,” Eleanor added. If she had her way, she would never let Blair leave. Blair knew that.

It brought a smile back to Blair’s face. “I know,” Blair replied. “I must be up front regarding my return.”

Eleanor placed her glass against the table and narrowed her eyes at her daughter. Blair’s return was not abrupt. They shared frequent letters, calls and Eleanor even visited a handful of times. However, the news Blair was to share was not known.

“You will recall from our last conversation I met a young man, Louis.”

“The one in Monaco?”

He was wealthier than she knew how to put into words. He was noble and deep blue blooded. He was thoughtful and good. The reality was he was more than enough. Blair was not foolish, while her divorcee mother had remarried well it was not her stepfather’s duty to care for them both. The money from her own father would one day dry up. Regardless of all that, any woman of her age knew that once one had amused herself with a little study it was time to move onto her real life. It was a new era on paper, yet any realistic girl knew where to draw the line.

“Yes,” Blair replied. “He is to join me in New York at the end of the Summer and we are to be engaged.”

She had told him she was due to return home with the silent unspoken hope he would ask her then. He had not. It was with great disappointment that she began to pack her belongings and life up. However, Blair had no need to worry as her decision had done the trick. He advised he would follow her when his work was complete and if she would accept, he would take her hand. There was a checklist in her head and heart for how things were destined to work, and she had achieved it flawlessly.

-

Serena Van der Woodsen bounded into Blair’s bedroom in a flurry of sparkling jewels. She was as bright as she had been three years ago, and as lively as ever. “ _Blair_ ,” she sighed with her full chest. “Don’t ever leave me again.”

She tugged her into a hug and pressed her against her chest. Blair held on to her tightly. She was a familiar warmth. Her childhood best friend was taller, and had her hair now cut into a tight short bob that framed her face. Serena wore a simple on trend black halo band against her golden curls. She had matured in years but held onto a childlike spirit that bubbled against every surface of her appearance. She was the same Serena but changed. Blair could instantly tell that time and their isolation had carved her out into this new version. She was the type that this new world had been made for.

Serena and Blair were two sides of the same coin. They were blessed with each other since birth. They had the same harsh childhoods that were blessed with bountiful monetary wealth but morally bankrupt parents. However, for every time Serena was spontaneous and reckless there was Blair to be measured and calculated.

“I am back for good,” Blair replied as she let her go. Their hands remained tangled together like roots. “I promise.”

Blair extracted her photograph book from inside her half-unpacked luggage. They sat down on her chaise. Blair flicked through the pages. She recalled tales against the pictures of her at school. She described the clothes she wore and the friends she made.

“I would make wine at the vineyard.”

“I can’t imagine drinking in public anymore,” Serena laughed. “It’s odd, it is more fun in secret.”

Blair shut the book. “You shouldn’t be drinking anywhere,” she replied. She narrowed her eyes at her best friend.

“You sound like my mother,” Serena said. She thought for a moment, before adding, “And your mother.”

Blair rolled her eyes a little and stood to place the book on her vanity. “That is not a bad thing. High society still exists Serena. You’ll never find a respectable husband if you spend your nights longing for Hollywood and befriending bootleggers.”

Her eyes turned to stars and face lit up. “I think I’m destined to be in the pictures, I just can’t dare to leave the city. Hollywood is so far away, I keep saying I’ll be gone but I think somehow New York owns me.”

“There is something about the city, I’ll agree with you there.”

Serena’s momentary distraction ceased. “I have the rest of my life to be respectable and so do you. We only have the _now_ to appreciate all the freedom we have been granted.”

She could never intimately know any of her best friends struggles. Serena’s mother may have been scandalous in her own ways their family was almost blemish free. It was as if there were too infamous to be touched by whispers of gossip. She had a much-loved heir of a brother to be the golden one. The estate of her deceased grandparents would bleed cash until they were all long gone.

If Blair had felt pressured in her youth to be perfect and never let Eleanor down, it had doubled after the breakdown of her family. It was as if the pedestal they stood on was a balancing beam.

“Your attempt is valiant, but misguided. I’ll be fine without,” Blair replied with a tight smile. She twisted the golden ruby ring she wore around in anxious circles.

-

Blair busied herself. She spent her days reacquainting herself with the city like they were lost lovers. She courted New York and fell back in love with the streets, stores and air. It was romantic and fulfilling.

Eleanor invited her to parties. The gatherings were sociable and tolerable. Yet it was dreary. They made small talk, she spoke of her tales and she realised they were in the same stuffy stuck up world wished had died during the War. She missed the days in Europe where she could admire the man beside her and the liveliness of their cities. It was the hardest sorrow to be parted. She watched the clock and sat in corners. In each room she began to feel more and more like she was seventeen again.

Blair wound her hand around the telephone cord. “You’re bored. No one under the age of forty would be caught dead at those parties,” Serena said through the line. She had a hint of snark.

“For good reason,” Blair replied. “Prohibition is a bore. And these people are stuck in the past.”

“It isn’t if you do it right. If I remember correctly a week ago you felt the same,” Serena laughed.

“I’m not taking my words back,” Blair said. She thought for a moment. “But maybe we can be respectable and have a little fun.”

“Let me take you out then. I promise there will be no stuck-up debutants trying to spot you, even if there was then they will be out too – just as guilty.”

Blair considered it. She wound the cord tighter against her fist and tapped her heeled foot against the floor. “Alright,” she agreed. “One night.”

“Wear that black dress, you’ll look a dream. The one you showed me, with the jewels and a headband! Pin your hair up, we’re going to a real ritzy place. I’ll send the car.”

-

It was, to the ordinary eye, a simple building with no mystery. Serena tugged her hand and led them down the alley toward the nondescript door. Their heels echoed against the cobblestones. Blair was not afraid. She was only afraid of what people could think. If she locked eyes with someone she knew, would they tell?

Serena pushed open the door and Blair thought a wonderland may appear from behind. “Follow me closely,” her best friend stated. It opened and inside was a room you could find in every building across the city. It was simple, quiet and dark like the moody late summer evening sky.

There was a lone man in the corner that had eyes of mystery that looked up from beneath the newspaper he read. He gave a soft nod and they were on their way. Serena led them further down the rabbit hole through a twisting staircase. The deeper they winded the louder a soft hum grew beneath them. Through the smoky darkness a set of double doors appeared that were guarded.

Serena marched forward with confidence and Blair followed suit. She shadowed and remembered the sole piece of advice she was given, to just act like you own the place. And, don’t ask too many questions.

“I have a key,” Serena told the guard. She fished it out from her small purse and presented it for viewing.

“Who are you here for?” he replied, not flinching or uncrossing his arms. He eyed Blair suspiciously

“Charlie Trout.”

He stepped aside. Serena’s answer had worked its magic and she unlocked the door. Blair held her bag a little tighter to her side. This was no world for a lady, this was the playground of the new woman. The room was a busy bustling flurry of activity. There was a crowded bar that was stocked and tended. The patrons packed it. The hordes mingled and they danced by the stage where musicians and dancers performed. It was busy and alive, but Blair couldn’t help but realise the thrill of the exclusivity. This world beneath this building was outside anything above it she had experienced over the last two weeks. It was also very different from the world she had returned from.

Serena knew the room like the back of her hand and led them toward a door near the stage. Their short journey was interrupted by people stopping to greet her and eye Blair with intrigue. It was clear Serena was a glimmering star and Blair swallowed her simmering resentfulness. “There is someone we need to go see,” she shouted above the noise.

She knocked three times on the elusive door before opening it carefully. She shot Blair a devilish look over her shoulder and it opened.

“Natie,” Serena giggled as she threw herself into the arms of the inhabitant. She wrapped loose arms around him and her dress swung around her lower knee where it ended.

The door shut behind them and instantly the women were enclosed in a shadowy office. The room was like the others but unlike the main room they just walked through. It was mysterious and hazy, Blair instantly noted. At first she thought the only one in there was Serena’s interest, but her eyes fell on another behind the main desk. His eyes rose to take the female companions in. The two men were dressed well, like businessmen but not gentlemen.

The man in the centre of the room took her in with careful precision and a firm stare that bored into her. He had a darker look that the other, his eyes were deep and piercing. His face was sharp. Blair blushed but steadied her gaze. There was something familiar.

She did not wake up today expecting to end it with men unchaperoned. The business on the table was turned over from her prying eyes.

“You can’t just barge in here,” Nate whispered to Serena loud enough for them all to hear.

Serena swatted his arms away. “ _Please_ ,” she sighed. “I know all the secrets. Besides, you never lock the door.”

The men stared at her in contempt and she enjoyed it. Serena basked in breaking rules and making men fall in love endlessly. “Natie baby, you remember Blair Waldorf.”

She tugged Blair a little closer so he could take her appearance in. He looked her up until he nodded. “Of course,” he replied.

Serena smiled and then turned. “And Chuck, you remember Blair.”

Blair looked at them both closely and recalled a now far gone childhood. It was now years ago that they all sat in parlours together as children before age and gendered circles separated them. Nate had a father that drank too much. Chuck always cheated on their immature parlour games.

“Who could forget,” Chuck said with a firm gaze. “Blair Waldorf in my speakeasy, I never would’ve bet on that.”

There was something in his calculated smug expression that provoked her. There was something about him, he looked at her like he saw right through her. “You do not know me then Sir,” Blair said with a cool tone.

He smirked a little more at her bluntness. He picked up his lit cigar that he had rested. “I am no gentleman, please do call me Chuck.”

“Well, I am a lady. Please do call me Miss Waldorf.”

Serena and Nate eyed them both separately as they remained wrapped in each other’s arms. Blair tried to hide her clenched jaw and Chuck puffed his cigar. “Would the lady like a drink?” Chuck asked smoothly.

“It’s on the house,” Nate added with a cheer. Serena clapped her hands.

-

They didn’t need to wait in any lines or offer up any cash. The perk of getting in with the owners seemed worth it, but Blair still eyed them both suspiciously. She could tell Nate was too clean cut to be the brains. He still carried the same aura he had always had, which was deep rooted old money. He should have no need for criminal activity. Blair wracked her brain for memory of the Bass family as they poured glasses and were escorted to a secret private booth that overlooked the bar floor from above.

The best Blair could come up with was a memory of a distantly cold Bart Bass. There was no mother. They had to be new money.

“Try this,” Serena said as she pushed a sparkling glass toward Blair. Blair smiled and sipped. She settled into her seat. “Blair just returned from Europe!”

“I was studying the language and living with my father,” Blair added as explanation.

“Paris?” Chuck asked with genuine curiosity in his tone.

Blair turned and looked at him. “I only went once.”

“This must be a hell of a change,” Nate said.

“It is similar, but so different.” She looked around the room and down toward the floor where people laughed and danced. “There is definitely nothing else like this in the rest of the world.”

“Unless prohibition catches on, then the entire world will be like us,” Nate responds with a wink.

Serena laughed, “Look how wonderfully it works.” She drank her drinks faster than all of her companions. In no time she was standing up begging for Nate to lead her closer to the music. He gave in and took her hand willingly. They ventured down arm in arm and left their friends. “Be civil,” Nate said with a pointed look at Chuck.

“How does it work?” Blair asked curiously. She turned her body toward his. She was suddenly alone with him, but it felt less scandalous then at first. Her heart was no longer threatening to break her rib cage. The entire room was filled with men and women mingling like there was no rule book.

“The champagne?” Chuck replied with calm indifference. He lifted the bottle and poured a little more in her glass.

“The operation,” she replied bluntly. Serena said to not ask questions and act like she knew the game. Blair, for some reason, felt like he wouldn’t mind if she played by her own rules.

He eyed her from behind his own glass carefully. “How do I know you aren’t an undercover?”

“You insult me again,” Blair replied.

“Alright Waldorf,” he said, giving in easily. He sat back against his seat and nursed his whiskey. “I trust your intentions for being here tonight, I know now you like a good time under that proper façade.”

She chose to ignore his provocations. “You are born rich Mr Bass, why be a criminal? I know your father never lost his fortune so you inherited it. I would’ve read about it.”

“The thrill,” he replied. “And you can never be too rich.”

There was something inside Blair that couldn’t help but agree with him.

“Nathaniel is the connections,” he said softly, he raised his hand a little to indicate him down below by the musicians swinging Serena around in circles. “The Vanderbilt’s are very connected and good at having politicians make things move their way. It makes things easier to operate, move goods in and out.”

“Why does he do it?” she asked. She watched Nate and wondered. His father had gone down in scandal, but his mother’s side stood tall and strong.

“You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

His attraction and clear love for Serena was her clue. Nate seemed determined to shun the expectations of those around him. He could or should be married off to a Whitney or Waldorf by now. Yet Blair found him indulging in illegal activity and hopelessly pining for a whimsical flapper who never wanted to be tied down. He could leave it all to just have her and it would be enough.

“I think I know,” Blair replied.

Chuck let a small smile grace his face and it surprised her. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared. “You read people well.”

The way he said it lit something in her. For the first time she allowed herself to indulge in him, he was dressed impeccably in a well cut three piece suit. There was an aura of elegance around him but at the same time, there was a deep undercurrent of danger in his look and words. He had brown eyes and hair that matched her own. He looked at her in a way that no other man had ever dared. It was as if he knew deep down she was no lady and yet he admired her for it in a particular way. He looked at her like it really was 1925.

“I do,” she eventually replied. “You have not yet said what you do Bass.”

The small flicker of a smile returned as she taunted him with his last name. “I own the buildings. I make all the rules and create all the fun.”

“You want your own money,” Blair said. She knew she was correct, and his reaction confirmed it.

Serena returned suddenly and tugged at her arm. She begged, “Please dance. I’ll teach you the Charleston.”

Blair couldn’t say no. She left the booth and Chuck to dance in the crowds. It was strange at first, but Serena pushed her on until she got it. For a brief second she allowed herself the pleasure of letting her eyeline scan toward the booth. She caught his eyes and averted her gaze.

Serena, Nate and Blair danced until their feet hurt. Chuck disappeared from their sight, and for the regular two it appeared to be the norm. Blair thought of him her entire ride home and until sleep overcame her.

**Author's Note:**

> @chairiconic on twitter


End file.
